I submitted this to Congressman Jim Moran's website just a few moments ago:
Congressman Moran,
From what I understand, you intend to back the president on Syrian
intervention. I implore you change your mind. You have encouraged me
with your stand on marijuana and other social issues, but I see no
reason why we should get involved in Syria without a measurable and
articulable objective.
Right now, the best the administration has done
is to make the case to quite literally just throw ordnance at the
problem. That is a waste of resources that takes no real account of
unintended consequences.
I urge you to reconsider your position,
Jonathan Blanks
Alexandria, VA
bellum medicamenti delenda est
Showing posts with label War. Show all posts
Showing posts with label War. Show all posts
Friday, September 6, 2013
Friday, May 28, 2010
Major Andy Olmsted, RIP
I've linked to this before, but I read it again recently and have no doubt it is worth sharing again as we head into this Memorial Day weekend.All the background is in the post, but this is a moving farewell from a soldier and blogger killed in Iraq in January 2008. If you haven't read it yet, you should. If you have, read it again.
Andy Olmsted, RIP
Wednesday, November 11, 2009
Thank You, Veterans
I just saw this video from Reason.tv. As Radley has said, there's something in my eye. Both of them.
Tuesday, November 3, 2009
Further Empowering the Most Powerful Man on the Planet
Over at the League of Ordinary Gentlemen, Jamelle has an idea to "address long term challenges" through "meaningful legislation": fundamentally change the structure of Congress so that it's "more responsive." To wit:
Jamelle starts off his post saying that the conventional wisdom among Lefty bloggers is that Congress is "broken" and thus needs fixing so that the president can get his important agenda through past all those darned obstructionists.
First of all, it isn't the job of Congress to enable the president to do anything. In fact, bold, lame, or otherwise bland legislative agendas are, indeed, the sole prerogative of the, er, legislature. The very first legally binding part of the Constitution reads:
And it isn't that I'm naive as to 'how government really works.' Nor would I even imply that extra-constitutional power grabs are the exclusive domain of one party. Indeed, I oppose the expansion of executive power because of the fact that presidents of any party seek to enlarge their power--and whatever power you give to one president, you give to his opponents who will, eventually, succeed him.
The naivete, I would argue, is in the assumption that these heightened powers would always be used for good, or even assumed that they would be used for good on net. Despite the disarray of the current GOP, the notion of a permanent Democratic majority is just as fanciful as the permanent Republican majority imagined in the early Bush (43) years. Political tides change and, invariably, the party in the White House changes also. I can't imagine Jamelle orYglesias or any number of Lefty bloggers arguing for this power four years ago. The reason for that is, of course, their compatriots would have looked at them as if they were mentally defective to argue to give W. more power. Yet, for some reason, there is a consensus among these same folks that we do exactly that today as if a Republican will never come back into office.
Whatever power you give the guy you agree with, by way of our precedent-based system of laws, you give them to your political adversaries. Furthermore, the precedent given is not only that of the explicit power granted, but the power to expand the limits of power generally. Thus, by saying this or that constitutional limit doesn't apply because you have compelling reasons, any other constitutional limit is therefore vulnerable to the same argument, rendering the Constitution itself moot.
You would think that adherents to the party that has one--ONE!!--president elected twice since FDR (who governed much like a Republican after the first two years) would be wary about vesting too much power in the presidency. But, ah, how short-term our memories are when your guy (or gal, I suppose) gets in power.
A Republican case in point: Yoo'll never guess who lamented the extra-constitutional executive powers of the Clinton administration:
Because of, not in spite of, Congress's numerous abrogations of its Constitutional duty to act as a check on the Executive and punting its prerogative to declare war by writing Bush a blank check on the Iraq invasion, we're facing many of the problems the so-called "Progressives" have been complaining about for years. And it's not all the Republicans fault: one only has to look to the recent half-assed "debate" on PATRIOT Act reforms and State's Secrets protections sought by the current administration to show that civil liberties and transparency aren't much more popular at either end Pennsylvania than they were last year.
Nevertheless, the "Progressive" idea is to further empower the most powerful man on the planet to charge headlong into some new foray of ill-conceived and expensive adventure in the name of what's best. How this ever got the label of "progress" is fully beyond me.
Congress wasn't meant to work efficiently. (and thank Madison for that!) The fact the president can't just come up with an idea and make it so is the essence and beauty of deliberative democracy, not some sort of calamity.
In the future, as a practical matter, the next time Jamelle et al. want to give Obama more power, perhaps they should stop and think, "What would W. do with it?"
UPDATE: It should be noted that weeks ago, I happened upon a blog entry Yglesias wrote in 2005 arguing for the rejection of the filibuster. I never changed the post to reflect that, and since have. 10 points for consistency, but still 0 points for efficacy.
Accountability is nice, but absent further institutional reform, it still leaves you with that basic problem (albeit slightly reduced). Better would be to reduce or eliminate some of those barriers, as to make better legislation possible in the first place. A system where committees are weaker, majorities are stronger and obstructionism harder is a system that incentivizes better legislation, as each member knows that their bill can make it to the floor in more or less its original state. It’s a system where there are fewer opportunities for capture by special or parochial interests, and it’s a system that actually empowers presidents to pursue their agendas.(Emphasis mine.)
Jamelle starts off his post saying that the conventional wisdom among Lefty bloggers is that Congress is "broken" and thus needs fixing so that the president can get his important agenda through past all those darned obstructionists.
First of all, it isn't the job of Congress to enable the president to do anything. In fact, bold, lame, or otherwise bland legislative agendas are, indeed, the sole prerogative of the, er, legislature. The very first legally binding part of the Constitution reads:
Not most. Not some. Not 'all but those the president or the party of greater assumed moral right feel necessary.' All. This isn't some obscure, buried clause of ambiguous meaning where intelligent people can differ. This is the first word of the first line of law that establishes our current form of government.Article 1 Section 1. All legislative powers herein granted shall be vested in a Congress of the United States, which shall consist of a Senate and House of Representatives.
And it isn't that I'm naive as to 'how government really works.' Nor would I even imply that extra-constitutional power grabs are the exclusive domain of one party. Indeed, I oppose the expansion of executive power because of the fact that presidents of any party seek to enlarge their power--and whatever power you give to one president, you give to his opponents who will, eventually, succeed him.
The naivete, I would argue, is in the assumption that these heightened powers would always be used for good, or even assumed that they would be used for good on net. Despite the disarray of the current GOP, the notion of a permanent Democratic majority is just as fanciful as the permanent Republican majority imagined in the early Bush (43) years. Political tides change and, invariably, the party in the White House changes also. I can't imagine Jamelle or
Whatever power you give the guy you agree with, by way of our precedent-based system of laws, you give them to your political adversaries. Furthermore, the precedent given is not only that of the explicit power granted, but the power to expand the limits of power generally. Thus, by saying this or that constitutional limit doesn't apply because you have compelling reasons, any other constitutional limit is therefore vulnerable to the same argument, rendering the Constitution itself moot.
You would think that adherents to the party that has one--ONE!!--president elected twice since FDR (who governed much like a Republican after the first two years) would be wary about vesting too much power in the presidency. But, ah, how short-term our memories are when your guy (or gal, I suppose) gets in power.
A Republican case in point: Yoo'll never guess who lamented the extra-constitutional executive powers of the Clinton administration:
"President Clinton has exercised the powers of the imperial presidency to the upmost ... [and] undermine[d] notions of democratic accountability and respect for the rule of law ... ."Of course, this is from the same man who would write this with a straight face, just two years later, what later became known as a "Torture Memo":
“our Office [of Legal Counsel] recently concluded that the Fourth Amendment had no application to domestic military operations.” (Emphasis in original)Even if one was so naive to think that every president from their party was a politician with the heart of gold and the wherewithal (i.e., superhuman knowledge) to effectively implement the "meaningful legislation" Jamelle et al. would like pass, such contortions of our rule of law leads to the unraveling of our most fundamental protections against state encroachment. This isn't some reductio ad absurdum argument: this is a playing out of rights preferences of one political party over the other. One party is marginally better on property rights, the other on civil liberties--or at least, they pretend to be. But if you grant one of them the power to run roughshod over the rights and liberties they find less compelling, you grant the other side the very same. Such actions, by either party, are inimical to individual liberty.
Because of, not in spite of, Congress's numerous abrogations of its Constitutional duty to act as a check on the Executive and punting its prerogative to declare war by writing Bush a blank check on the Iraq invasion, we're facing many of the problems the so-called "Progressives" have been complaining about for years. And it's not all the Republicans fault: one only has to look to the recent half-assed "debate" on PATRIOT Act reforms and State's Secrets protections sought by the current administration to show that civil liberties and transparency aren't much more popular at either end Pennsylvania than they were last year.
Nevertheless, the "Progressive" idea is to further empower the most powerful man on the planet to charge headlong into some new foray of ill-conceived and expensive adventure in the name of what's best. How this ever got the label of "progress" is fully beyond me.
Congress wasn't meant to work efficiently. (and thank Madison for that!) The fact the president can't just come up with an idea and make it so is the essence and beauty of deliberative democracy, not some sort of calamity.
In the future, as a practical matter, the next time Jamelle et al. want to give Obama more power, perhaps they should stop and think, "What would W. do with it?"
UPDATE: It should be noted that weeks ago, I happened upon a blog entry Yglesias wrote in 2005 arguing for the rejection of the filibuster. I never changed the post to reflect that, and since have. 10 points for consistency, but still 0 points for efficacy.
Tuesday, October 20, 2009
Friday, May 15, 2009
Horseshoes, Hand Grenades, and Nuclear Warfare
So, the new trope the Right is trotting out to defend torture is carpet bombing of Germany and Japan in WWII:
The logic of Mr. Kozak's argument is thus: Japan was bad. We were at war with Japan. We did bad things to Japan to win in a just cause, thus that action was justified--or at the very least, exusable--even if somewhat barbaric.
Certainly, setting hundreds of thousands of innocent civilians ablaze is more morally condemnable than going to extreme measures for information against a known terrorist responsible for murders, yes? On its face, this argument seems to work, but again--we're comparing unlike actions to one another as if they could ever be on the same moral plane. I intend to show that they are not, for moral and consequentialist reasons.
The Right's new-fangled argument rests on two premises: 1) that LeMay's actions were, indeed, justifiable militarily and politically and 2) that they were integral in the decision of the Japanese to surrender, thus bringing a(n assumed) just conclusion to a horrific war. (I will stipulate that, from a matter of justice, ultimately it was more just for the Allies to have won WWII. I don't think this is much of a concession.)
I will grant the bulk of #2 straight off for the simple reason that I haven't studied the battles of the Pacific that closely, nor the internal politics of 1940s Japan, well enough to know whether these strikes were actually effective in bringing about a swifter end to the war. I think the numbers of U.S. casualties is nothing but loosely-based conjecture and not worth addressing on a substantive level. For the sake of argument, however, I am prepared to stipulate that the carpet bombing with incendiary bombs (a tactic already used in the European theatre, by the way, lessening the strength of the race angle insinuated by the article) helped break the will of the Japanese people, thus paving the way for a quicker and less costly (to the U.S.) end to the war in the Pacific. The numbers of American dead, then, will be assumed to be much less in the pro-LeMay scenario.
The first assumption, however, I know to be based on contestable claims--at the very least. The article bases the military motives almost entirely on the fact that American lives would be spared. As I write above, I will assume this to be true, absent any decent evidence to the contrary. However, this is hardly the only--and some would argue, not the primary--geo-political reason for such aggressive action on the part of the American military against the Japanese mainland.
As the fighting in Europe ended, the spoils were being divided by the Great Powers; spheres of influence were established between the Soviets and the West as a conglomerate. The threat of communism was not unknown to either Great Britain or the United States, and thus the looming confrontation with the USSR was not one of great surprise. While it certainly hadn't reached the Berlin Airlift stage of crisis, the situation developing in Berlin, the rest of Germany, and Eastern Europe was undeniably a tenuous one. There is reason to believe that the Western powers wanted Japan to be free--or free from Soviet influence, at any rate. Thus, a prevailing sentiment among some Russian and WWII scholars is that the use of Fat Man and Little Boy against Hiroshima and Nagasaki was a last ditch effort to get the Japanese to surrender before Autumn--the time when the Soviets had indicated they would be ready for an invasion of Japan from the North.
Without delving into the immorality of communism, would LeMay's actions be as acceptable if made from this more geo-political motive? Is the threat of communism enough to burn hundreds of thousands of people alive--either to benefit U.S. political influence or, conceivably, to protect the surviving Japanese people from the threat of Soviet domination? These, I believe, are not questions easily answered. But they are questions that we, today, can debate and have reasonable disagreements about. I would, however, be hard-pressed to ever compare these very contoured and complex questions about war planning to anything outside of that particular time period, due to its special circumstances.
The evolution of warfare makes comparisons almost laughable--can you really compare carpet bombing to the pillaging hordes of the Mongols or the Vikings? Where, exactly, should we stand on the conquest of North America, including the use of germ warfare, that made it possible for me to be raised in the Ohio Valley? Can you compare the use of flame-throwers on D-Day to the battle of Antioch (Holy Hand Grenade notwithstanding)? In all seriousness, the point of this is that it's nearly impossible to compare, let alone excuse, even conventional warfare. Yes, there are established rules, but the rules which governed battle on open fields in 1776 hardly apply to house-to-house fighting in Mosul in 2009.
How on Earth Mr. Kozak can make honest sense of a comparison between the dumb, blunt force of millions of tons of explosives dropped from 1000s of feet in the air in the 1940s to the up-close and personal psychological violence inflicted by torture--both currently and historically quite ineffectively--fully against the rules of war (if we are to suspend disbelief for a moment that the previous administration intended to give our prisoners the basic protections of war combatants) is well-beyond my capacity of rational thought.
From a practical and military perspective, in order to collect actionable intelligence, guilt or innocence is effectively irrelevant. Thus, comparing the guilt of Khalid Sheik Mohammad versus the innocence of Japanese (or German) families killed in incendiary bombing campaigns misses the point entirely. Unalienable means unalienable, especially while in the full custody of the U.S. government, and the blunt use of force at the military's disposal of the military in the first half of the 20th century is in no way comparable to the centuries-old custom and knowledge that torture leads to false confessions--and that dismissing tried and true interrogation techniques in favor of such unreliable torture is an act of gross negligence that, in my opinion, rises to the point of criminal.
The interrogation professionals shunned the euphemistically-named "Enhanced Interrogation Techniques" for traditional methods (and, until I get evidence to the contrary, I'm going to assume that these people wanted the best and most reliable intelligence to be collected as efficiently as possible and aren't part of some ultra-Left cabal bent on treating terrorists with kid gloves and sissifying our military and intelligence operations). The most vital information thus far made public was provided by these traditional methods and--if the interrogators are to be believed--hampered by the implementation of torture.
The level heads and trained professionals of our intelligence-gathering agencies who, like the rest of us, experienced the horror of 9/11, still argued against the use of torture--even against those most responsible for it. Mr. Kozak's invocation of the reflexive pain and anger of 9/11 serves only to remind us of how emotional--not rational--we were after that day. Those charged with finding the truth of those events, and of subsequent dangers, managed to set aside their quite righteous emotional sentiments against the guilty and lust for vengeance that many--if not most of us--felt. Furthermore, Mr. Kozak's citation of public opinion viz. war with Japan and Germany pre- and post-Pearl Harbor could just as easily be used to justify Japanese internment and the blatantly racist Korematsu decision. The emotional state of the masses is hardly a sound base for foreign, domestic, or intelligence policy.
In the end, Mr. Kozak makes a fragmented and irrational case for the use of torture against our enemies. His submission is based on selected facts that really should not be compared with one another for temporal, technological, and practical reasons. Yes, bad things happen--and they often happen in the name of national defense or security. It does not follow, however, that questionable military decisions from the 1940s are in any way related to, or could possibly excuse, counterproductive and plainly cruel interrogation tactics of today.
The author is right: anyone hearing this for the first time in 2009 would be hard pressed to defend such an action...due to the stunning accuracy of American weaponry today. If the American military were to engage in action like this in modern combat, I assure you the commanders responsible for such a campaign would be condemned the world over--in addition to being run out of the service and probably court martialed. Does the advancement of weapon technology excuse LeMay's actions? Not necessarily, but neither are all horrible actions during wartime viewed ex post facto in the same league, ballpark, or sport. Furthermore, in the case of torture, we're not even discussing war: we're discussing humane treatment of unarmed individuals in American custody. In particular, we're dealing with international criminals; murderers of a special sort that nevertheless have unalienable rights--such is the very definition of unalienable--which should not be crossed UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES.On the night of March 9, 1945, [General Curtis] LeMay sent 346 huge B-29 bombers loaded with napalm from the Mariana Islands (Guam, Saipan and Tinian) to Tokyo. The first planes dropped their incendiaries on the front and back of the target area -- like lighting up both ends of a football field at night. The rest of the planes filled in the middle. More than 16 square miles of Japan's capital city were gutted, two million people were left homeless, and 100,000 were dead.
It didn't end there. Washington gave LeMay the green light as his bombers burned 64 more cities. He used the World Almanac and just went down the list by population. Altogether, an estimated 350,000 people lost their lives. Anyone hearing this for the first time in 2009 would be hard pressed to defend such an action.
The logic of Mr. Kozak's argument is thus: Japan was bad. We were at war with Japan. We did bad things to Japan to win in a just cause, thus that action was justified--or at the very least, exusable--even if somewhat barbaric.
Certainly, setting hundreds of thousands of innocent civilians ablaze is more morally condemnable than going to extreme measures for information against a known terrorist responsible for murders, yes? On its face, this argument seems to work, but again--we're comparing unlike actions to one another as if they could ever be on the same moral plane. I intend to show that they are not, for moral and consequentialist reasons.
The Right's new-fangled argument rests on two premises: 1) that LeMay's actions were, indeed, justifiable militarily and politically and 2) that they were integral in the decision of the Japanese to surrender, thus bringing a(n assumed) just conclusion to a horrific war. (I will stipulate that, from a matter of justice, ultimately it was more just for the Allies to have won WWII. I don't think this is much of a concession.)
I will grant the bulk of #2 straight off for the simple reason that I haven't studied the battles of the Pacific that closely, nor the internal politics of 1940s Japan, well enough to know whether these strikes were actually effective in bringing about a swifter end to the war. I think the numbers of U.S. casualties is nothing but loosely-based conjecture and not worth addressing on a substantive level. For the sake of argument, however, I am prepared to stipulate that the carpet bombing with incendiary bombs (a tactic already used in the European theatre, by the way, lessening the strength of the race angle insinuated by the article) helped break the will of the Japanese people, thus paving the way for a quicker and less costly (to the U.S.) end to the war in the Pacific. The numbers of American dead, then, will be assumed to be much less in the pro-LeMay scenario.
The first assumption, however, I know to be based on contestable claims--at the very least. The article bases the military motives almost entirely on the fact that American lives would be spared. As I write above, I will assume this to be true, absent any decent evidence to the contrary. However, this is hardly the only--and some would argue, not the primary--geo-political reason for such aggressive action on the part of the American military against the Japanese mainland.
As the fighting in Europe ended, the spoils were being divided by the Great Powers; spheres of influence were established between the Soviets and the West as a conglomerate. The threat of communism was not unknown to either Great Britain or the United States, and thus the looming confrontation with the USSR was not one of great surprise. While it certainly hadn't reached the Berlin Airlift stage of crisis, the situation developing in Berlin, the rest of Germany, and Eastern Europe was undeniably a tenuous one. There is reason to believe that the Western powers wanted Japan to be free--or free from Soviet influence, at any rate. Thus, a prevailing sentiment among some Russian and WWII scholars is that the use of Fat Man and Little Boy against Hiroshima and Nagasaki was a last ditch effort to get the Japanese to surrender before Autumn--the time when the Soviets had indicated they would be ready for an invasion of Japan from the North.
Without delving into the immorality of communism, would LeMay's actions be as acceptable if made from this more geo-political motive? Is the threat of communism enough to burn hundreds of thousands of people alive--either to benefit U.S. political influence or, conceivably, to protect the surviving Japanese people from the threat of Soviet domination? These, I believe, are not questions easily answered. But they are questions that we, today, can debate and have reasonable disagreements about. I would, however, be hard-pressed to ever compare these very contoured and complex questions about war planning to anything outside of that particular time period, due to its special circumstances.
The evolution of warfare makes comparisons almost laughable--can you really compare carpet bombing to the pillaging hordes of the Mongols or the Vikings? Where, exactly, should we stand on the conquest of North America, including the use of germ warfare, that made it possible for me to be raised in the Ohio Valley? Can you compare the use of flame-throwers on D-Day to the battle of Antioch (Holy Hand Grenade notwithstanding)? In all seriousness, the point of this is that it's nearly impossible to compare, let alone excuse, even conventional warfare. Yes, there are established rules, but the rules which governed battle on open fields in 1776 hardly apply to house-to-house fighting in Mosul in 2009.
How on Earth Mr. Kozak can make honest sense of a comparison between the dumb, blunt force of millions of tons of explosives dropped from 1000s of feet in the air in the 1940s to the up-close and personal psychological violence inflicted by torture--both currently and historically quite ineffectively--fully against the rules of war (if we are to suspend disbelief for a moment that the previous administration intended to give our prisoners the basic protections of war combatants) is well-beyond my capacity of rational thought.
From a practical and military perspective, in order to collect actionable intelligence, guilt or innocence is effectively irrelevant. Thus, comparing the guilt of Khalid Sheik Mohammad versus the innocence of Japanese (or German) families killed in incendiary bombing campaigns misses the point entirely. Unalienable means unalienable, especially while in the full custody of the U.S. government, and the blunt use of force at the military's disposal of the military in the first half of the 20th century is in no way comparable to the centuries-old custom and knowledge that torture leads to false confessions--and that dismissing tried and true interrogation techniques in favor of such unreliable torture is an act of gross negligence that, in my opinion, rises to the point of criminal.
The interrogation professionals shunned the euphemistically-named "Enhanced Interrogation Techniques" for traditional methods (and, until I get evidence to the contrary, I'm going to assume that these people wanted the best and most reliable intelligence to be collected as efficiently as possible and aren't part of some ultra-Left cabal bent on treating terrorists with kid gloves and sissifying our military and intelligence operations). The most vital information thus far made public was provided by these traditional methods and--if the interrogators are to be believed--hampered by the implementation of torture.
The level heads and trained professionals of our intelligence-gathering agencies who, like the rest of us, experienced the horror of 9/11, still argued against the use of torture--even against those most responsible for it. Mr. Kozak's invocation of the reflexive pain and anger of 9/11 serves only to remind us of how emotional--not rational--we were after that day. Those charged with finding the truth of those events, and of subsequent dangers, managed to set aside their quite righteous emotional sentiments against the guilty and lust for vengeance that many--if not most of us--felt. Furthermore, Mr. Kozak's citation of public opinion viz. war with Japan and Germany pre- and post-Pearl Harbor could just as easily be used to justify Japanese internment and the blatantly racist Korematsu decision. The emotional state of the masses is hardly a sound base for foreign, domestic, or intelligence policy.
In the end, Mr. Kozak makes a fragmented and irrational case for the use of torture against our enemies. His submission is based on selected facts that really should not be compared with one another for temporal, technological, and practical reasons. Yes, bad things happen--and they often happen in the name of national defense or security. It does not follow, however, that questionable military decisions from the 1940s are in any way related to, or could possibly excuse, counterproductive and plainly cruel interrogation tactics of today.
Wednesday, April 29, 2009
Why I'm Hard on Obama
Recently, my facebook wall became a bit of an ideological battleground. I have spats with one of my liberal friends from Indiana who is wholly in the tank for Obama. Then, a girl I had a fleeting crush on (Yes, you Amy) in my last few weeks at IU (my first time around) has been giving her two cents, along with an old friend from grade school, among others. The topics of contention varied, from school choice to spending and waste. The topic, however, that garnered the most comments was Obama's bow to the King of Saudi Arabia.
Without rehashing all the mess that went along with it, the general consensus of the liberal faction was that a) it wasn't a big deal, b) we should be worrying about other things and c) we should give Obama some space and time to see how his policies play out. I grant "a" to a certain extent, fully agree with "b," and "c" I couldn't disagree with more strongly because I think it flies fully in the face of "b." There was also mention that I was detracting from Obama just to be contrarian, or perhaps out of some partisan agenda. Neither is true, but probably would have been 10 years ago or so, so I'll forgive the assumption.
As I've noted here before, I hoped Obama would do well and have, most definitely, gushed pride for his accomplishments. But almost all good will toward him has been erased, not for some petty reason or any fealty to the GOP--I think they'd be screwing up pretty bad too, at the moment, because only about five of them really buy the limited government argument they've been spouting since the election--but because he is what I feared he'd be: just another opportunistic Democratic politician who will pander to the typical lefty constituencies (the American Bar Association, the Big Labor, and--most disappointingly--the teachers' unions). While one would expect some deference to his party's supporters, he's going out of his way to make himself a liar and bend to the whim of Reid, Pelosi, et al. who represent anything but "change." Furthermore, he's maintained or strengthened some of the Bush administrations most awful policies: indefinite detention and state's secret privilege, which even the left is starting to howl about.
Even though he has as much political capital as W. did post-9/11 and more than Bill Clinton ever enjoyed while in office, Obama can't bring himself to use it against his own party--effectively the only group keeping him from implementing his own policy.
Between his capitulations and outright reneges, the Obama presidency has already demonstrated itself to be more of the same, instead of the change that so many--and on some levels, I must count myself here--hoped for. Below, you will find a list of his more egregious actions, none of which involve royalty, diplomacy, or foreign policy--and the majority of which come from either major news sources or respected but unabashedly liberal sites (not that there's anything wrong with that):
Farm subsidies (New York Times):
State Secrets (Washington Post):
Education (Former DC Mayor Williams in Washington Post)
AIG/punitive taxation due to misinformed populist outcry (New York Times)
In addition to these, there has been double-talk on pork and earmarks while Democrats spread their spoils of electoral victory across their favorite constituencies, half-hearted gestures on fiscal responsibility (and I'm probably being generous about half of a heart), rushing to pass stimulus "right now" and then waiting two days to sign it in spite of few if any in Congress having the time to read it before voting, holding a proverbial gun to the head of the Senate (think "nuclear option" woo, bipartisanship!) and other tactics employed by politicians against politicians for political advantage against the better interests of the people.
The sooner America realizes that he's just another smooth-talking politician (we've seen one or two of them before, haven't we?), the better off everyone will be. But right now, so many people just think the man can do no wrong, in spite of his miserable track record of broken promises, outright lies, and self-serving political moves that only help the Democrats at the expense of the people.
I've got more change in my pocket than we've seen in 100 days.
Without rehashing all the mess that went along with it, the general consensus of the liberal faction was that a) it wasn't a big deal, b) we should be worrying about other things and c) we should give Obama some space and time to see how his policies play out. I grant "a" to a certain extent, fully agree with "b," and "c" I couldn't disagree with more strongly because I think it flies fully in the face of "b." There was also mention that I was detracting from Obama just to be contrarian, or perhaps out of some partisan agenda. Neither is true, but probably would have been 10 years ago or so, so I'll forgive the assumption.
As I've noted here before, I hoped Obama would do well and have, most definitely, gushed pride for his accomplishments. But almost all good will toward him has been erased, not for some petty reason or any fealty to the GOP--I think they'd be screwing up pretty bad too, at the moment, because only about five of them really buy the limited government argument they've been spouting since the election--but because he is what I feared he'd be: just another opportunistic Democratic politician who will pander to the typical lefty constituencies (the American Bar Association, the Big Labor, and--most disappointingly--the teachers' unions). While one would expect some deference to his party's supporters, he's going out of his way to make himself a liar and bend to the whim of Reid, Pelosi, et al. who represent anything but "change." Furthermore, he's maintained or strengthened some of the Bush administrations most awful policies: indefinite detention and state's secret privilege, which even the left is starting to howl about.
Even though he has as much political capital as W. did post-9/11 and more than Bill Clinton ever enjoyed while in office, Obama can't bring himself to use it against his own party--effectively the only group keeping him from implementing his own policy.
Between his capitulations and outright reneges, the Obama presidency has already demonstrated itself to be more of the same, instead of the change that so many--and on some levels, I must count myself here--hoped for. Below, you will find a list of his more egregious actions, none of which involve royalty, diplomacy, or foreign policy--and the majority of which come from either major news sources or respected but unabashedly liberal sites (not that there's anything wrong with that):
Farm subsidies (New York Times):
The White House plan would have prohibited so-called direct payments to farms whose annual gross receipts exceeded $500,000 — a large sum on the surface, but one that did not take account of whether those receipts yielded any real profits.
Within days, the National Farmers Union, which represents roughly 250,000 farm families, forcefully denounced the president’s plan and urged Congress to oppose it. The group’s board also raised the issue at a meeting with officials at the White House
While Mr. Obama’s Democratic allies on Capitol Hill adopted much of his budget template, the farm subsidy limits never got off the ground.
State Secrets (Washington Post):
State Secrets, cont'd (Salon.com/Glenn Greenwald):There are two things you really need to know about the "state secrets" privilege.
The first is that the government lied in the 1953 Supreme Court case that established the government's right not to disclose to the judicial branch information that would compromise national security. The widows of three civilian engineers who died in a military airplane crash sued the government for negligence. The government refused to turn over records, citing national security. But some 50 years later, when the records in question were made public, there were no national security secrets in them, just embarrassing information establishing the government's negligence. (More about the case here.)
The second thing is that the way the state secrets privilege has typically worked since then is that the government can refuse to publicly disclose a specific item of information if it explains why to the judge. The idea is not that government officials get to tell a judge to dismiss an entire case because they don't want to answer any questions at all.
But it is precisely such a sweeping assertion that the Justice Department -- the Obama Justice Department -- is making in three cases that relate to torture and warrantless wiretapping. (emphasis in original)
Every defining attribute of Bush's radical secrecy powers -- every one -- is found [in Obama's DOJ briefs], and in exactly the same tone and with the exact same mindset. Thus: how the U.S. government eavesdrops on its citizens is too secret to allow a court to determine its legality. We must just blindly accept the claims from the President's DNI that we will all be endangered if we allow courts to determine the legality of the President's actions. Even confirming or denying already publicly known facts -- such as the involvement of the telecoms and the massive data-mining programs -- would be too damaging to national security. Why? Because the DNI says so. It is not merely specific documents, but entire lawsuits, that must be dismissed in advance as soon as the privilege is asserted because "its very subject matter would inherently risk or require the disclosure of state secrets." (emphasis in original)
Education (Former DC Mayor Williams in Washington Post)
Obama's Dept of Ed killed the programThe reality of our children's deficits demands much more than we have given them. Platitudes, well-crafted speeches and the latest three-to-five-year reform plan aren't good enough. We must find ways to educate every child now, by any means necessary.
It was that spirit that led us, as elected officials of the District in 2003, to promote the D.C. Opportunity Scholarship Program. The program, which provides scholarships for low-income children to attend private schools, is part of the three-sector initiative that annually provides $50 million in federal funding to the District for education purposes. That money has been equally divided among D.C. Public Schools, D.C. Public Charter Schools and the scholarship program.
...
Despite...obvious signs of success, though, some in Congress want to end the program. Its funding is set to expire after the next school year ends, but some have even suggested curtailing it immediately so that these students can be placed in D.C. public schools as soon as possible. Already, no more students are being enrolled. These naysayers -- many of whom are fellow Democrats -- see vouchers as a tool to destroy the public education system. Their rhetoric and ire are largely fueled by those special-interest groups that are more dedicated to the adults working in the education system than to making certain every child is properly educated.
To us, that narrow perspective is wrongheaded and impractical, especially during these perilous economic times. Rather than talking about ending this scholarship program, federal lawmakers should allow more children to benefit from it.
AIG/punitive taxation due to misinformed populist outcry (New York Times)
Medical Marijuana (reason.com):It is with deep regret that I submit my notice of resignation from A.I.G. Financial Products. I hope you take the time to read this entire letter. Before describing the details of my decision, I want to offer some context:
I am proud of everything I have done for the commodity and equity divisions of A.I.G.-F.P. I was in no way involved in — or responsible for — the credit default swap transactions that have hamstrung A.I.G. Nor were more than a handful of the 400 current employees of A.I.G.-F.P. Most of those responsible have left the company and have conspicuously escaped the public outrage.
After 12 months of hard work dismantling the company — during which A.I.G. reassured us many times we would be rewarded in March 2009 — we in the financial products unit have been betrayed by A.I.G. and are being unfairly persecuted by elected officials. In response to this, I will now leave the company and donate my entire post-tax retention payment to those suffering from the global economic downturn. My intent is to keep none of the money myself.
I take this action after 11 years of dedicated, honorable service to A.I.G. I can no longer effectively perform my duties in this dysfunctional environment, nor am I being paid to do so. Like you, I was asked to work for an annual salary of $1, and I agreed out of a sense of duty to the company and to the public officials who have come to its aid. Having now been let down by both, I can no longer justify spending 10, 12, 14 hours a day away from my family for the benefit of those who have let me down.
Federal agents raided a medical marijuana dispensary in San Francisco Wednesday, a week after U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder signaled that the Obama administration would not prosecute distributors of pot used for medicinal purposes that operate under sanction of state law.Transparency (Cato@Liberty/Jim Harper)
Domestic Surveillance (ACLU):On the campaign trail, President Obama promised to post bills online for five days before signing them.
Last week, President Obama signed three new bills into law. None of them received the promised “Sunlight Before Signing” treatment - at least, not as far as our research reveals. (The White House has yet to establish a uniform place on its Web site where the public can look for bills that the President has received from Congress.)
The new bills put today’s podcast on Obama’s five-day pledge slightly out of date. He is not batting .091 on his transparency pledge. He’s batting .071. The substance of the podcast remains true, however: This is still a worse record than the Nationals.
Trade (reason.com):A series of leaked "intelligence" reports have caused quite a dust-up over the last several weeks. A Texas fusion center warned about a terrorist threat from "the international far Left," the Department of Homeland Security and a Missouri fusion center warned of threats posed by right-wing ideologues, and a Virginia fusion center saw threats from across the political spectrum and called certain colleges and religious groups "nodes of radicalization." These are all examples of domestic security gone wrong. The way for local police to secure their communities against real threats is to focus on criminal activities and the individuals involved in criminal activities.
Just because it was totally predictable, doesn't make it any less outrageous: The man who campaigned daily against trade agreements and outsourcing has sparked an utterly pointless trade war with Mexico.
In addition to these, there has been double-talk on pork and earmarks while Democrats spread their spoils of electoral victory across their favorite constituencies, half-hearted gestures on fiscal responsibility (and I'm probably being generous about half of a heart), rushing to pass stimulus "right now" and then waiting two days to sign it in spite of few if any in Congress having the time to read it before voting, holding a proverbial gun to the head of the Senate (think "nuclear option" woo, bipartisanship!) and other tactics employed by politicians against politicians for political advantage against the better interests of the people.
The sooner America realizes that he's just another smooth-talking politician (we've seen one or two of them before, haven't we?), the better off everyone will be. But right now, so many people just think the man can do no wrong, in spite of his miserable track record of broken promises, outright lies, and self-serving political moves that only help the Democrats at the expense of the people.
I've got more change in my pocket than we've seen in 100 days.
Monday, April 6, 2009
The Cost of War
Below is a photograph, of the first of its kind since 1991, of the body of a U.S. serviceman returning home Sunday night after being killed in action.
The man in the casket was USAF Staff Sgt. Phillip Myers, 30, of Hopewell, VA, killed two days ago by an IED.
Even though this cannot capture the tragedy and grief of his friends and family, I believe that this is an important reminder of what our men and women of our military face every time our politicians send them into harm's way. Whether you believe the action is justified or wrong-headed, America's short attention span should be jolted by images like these to remind it of the real cost of war--beyond and before the money is counted.
I have several friends who have come home from the battlefields--all safely, thankfully--and I know of a couple others from years back still serving there. I want them to come back home safely to their happy families at the airport and not like this.
But the return of those who gave their very lives in service to their country should not be done under the cloak of government secrecy. I can't speak for my friends, past and present, in the service, but I personally view it as dishonorable that the government would hide them, as if we were ashamed of them. These men and women sacrificed themselves: the least we could do is acknowledge them as they return home.
R.I.P.
UPDATE: Better write-up of Sgt. Myers' return at WaPo.
The man in the casket was USAF Staff Sgt. Phillip Myers, 30, of Hopewell, VA, killed two days ago by an IED.
Even though this cannot capture the tragedy and grief of his friends and family, I believe that this is an important reminder of what our men and women of our military face every time our politicians send them into harm's way. Whether you believe the action is justified or wrong-headed, America's short attention span should be jolted by images like these to remind it of the real cost of war--beyond and before the money is counted.
I have several friends who have come home from the battlefields--all safely, thankfully--and I know of a couple others from years back still serving there. I want them to come back home safely to their happy families at the airport and not like this.
But the return of those who gave their very lives in service to their country should not be done under the cloak of government secrecy. I can't speak for my friends, past and present, in the service, but I personally view it as dishonorable that the government would hide them, as if we were ashamed of them. These men and women sacrificed themselves: the least we could do is acknowledge them as they return home.
R.I.P.
UPDATE: Better write-up of Sgt. Myers' return at WaPo.
Thursday, August 7, 2008
Senator Strangelove
Given my airing of two McCain ads yesterday, it seems only fair that I should put up this gem:
Friday, June 20, 2008
Brutalizing English for Political Gain
My head nearly exploded this morning when I read this opening paragraph of a WSJ editorial:
I've ranted against "anti-antiterror" before, although it still infuriates me to no end. If the WSJ is going to be that way, they should just call people like me pro-terrorist or communist or whatever other ridiculous smear they can think of for properly comprehending the 4th Amendment to the Constitution of the United States. If they did that, they could limit their offensiveness to their own ideas without butchering the language to mask the absurdity of their implication.
Secondly, domestic intelligence gathering is not a tool of war. Indeed, it is a criminal justice issue and thus properly relegated to the judicial oversight of the FISA court. Under this twisted logic that conflates a policy talking-point (i.e. "War on Terror") with a conflict between military or paramilitary forces (i.e., war), one could easily argue for discarding Constitutional rights in the "War on Drugs" or even the "War on Poverty"--and they have.
Calling something a "war" as a political tactic does not make it so. Such language is simply a political trick to convince the public that the government can strip individuals rights for the sake of some greater good during a national emergency, that may or may not be as dangerous as advertised.
More on the political chicanery of the ubiquitous war metaphor can be found in my friend Gene Healy's book Cult of the Presidency. Buy it here.
The best news about yesterday's White House-Democrat deal on overseas eavesdropping is that the ACLU and the anti-antiterror Internet mob are apoplectic. This can only be good for U.S. national security. Too bad the compromise also comes at the cost of a further erosion of Presidential war powers."Anti-antiterror?" "War powers?"
I've ranted against "anti-antiterror" before, although it still infuriates me to no end. If the WSJ is going to be that way, they should just call people like me pro-terrorist or communist or whatever other ridiculous smear they can think of for properly comprehending the 4th Amendment to the Constitution of the United States. If they did that, they could limit their offensiveness to their own ideas without butchering the language to mask the absurdity of their implication.
Secondly, domestic intelligence gathering is not a tool of war. Indeed, it is a criminal justice issue and thus properly relegated to the judicial oversight of the FISA court. Under this twisted logic that conflates a policy talking-point (i.e. "War on Terror") with a conflict between military or paramilitary forces (i.e., war), one could easily argue for discarding Constitutional rights in the "War on Drugs" or even the "War on Poverty"--and they have.
Calling something a "war" as a political tactic does not make it so. Such language is simply a political trick to convince the public that the government can strip individuals rights for the sake of some greater good during a national emergency, that may or may not be as dangerous as advertised.
More on the political chicanery of the ubiquitous war metaphor can be found in my friend Gene Healy's book Cult of the Presidency. Buy it here.
Thursday, June 12, 2008
My Take on Boumediene
Ok. While I should be going home to clean my apartment, the temptation is just too great to write this now.
As I mentioned before, the opinion is over 130 pages. I'm not about to hash through it bit by bit, but I will address Scalia's dissent, already being fully embraced by the Right.
From the beginning, our beloved "Nino" distorts the entire concept of the case. Several times throughout his venomous dissent, he refers to the "war" against "radical Islamists" and various attacks the U.S. has suffered at the hands of Muslims: the Khobar Towers attack in Dharan, the embassy attacks at Dar es Salaam and Nairobi, the USS Cole and...the Marine barracks in Lebanon? (For my younger readers, that was an attack near the beginning of the Reagan administration.) Er, one of these things is not like the others...
Conflated responsibility for attacks aside, the fact is that the "War on Terror" is a war on an abstraction--it is a policy catch-phrase that, outside of an actual battlefield, serves only as rhetoric and a rationalization for the growth of the security state and reckless foreign policy. Not dissimilarly, it is no more a "war" than the war on illicit commodities, also known as the "War on Drugs." Certainly, there are tangible and substantial costs of blood and treasure for the victims and perpetrators of both of these "wars"--but neither is a war in any real sense.
9/11 wasn't an act of war--it was a heinous crime. 20 men, mostly Saudis, stole airplanes and murdered over 3,000 people. The Right has been all-too-quick to assign war powers to a president and Congress when, in fact, most of the acts they site are of a criminal nature. A "war on terror" would have to include a war on the Timothy McVeighs of the world, whom--by virtue of citizenship--are afforded constitutional protections and given trials. But this case doesn't even involve proper trials; it concerns whether or not foreign citizens--not to be confused with POWs--may challenge their incarceration in federal courts. Boumediene is one of several men who were imprisoned in Bosnia, by Bosnian authorities, held without charge, and then released for lack of evidence. After their release, they were picked up by Bosnian officials and transferred into U.S. custody--six years ago.
These men were not captured on the battlefield. These men were not, as far as anyone can tell, caught in the middle of some dastardly plot against the United States. Indeed, there is no evidence that, even if they are criminals, they had any intention of doing harm to the United States whatsoever. How they (legally speaking) came into the custody of the U.S. Military is quite a mystery to me. And, due to the legal black hole they found themselves in, as neither U.S. citizens or proper POWs (protected by the Geneva Conventions), they had no sufficient legal recourse to challenge their detentions.
Those whom have not followed this case closely may not be aware that Boumediene v. Bush had actually been denied certiorari before it was granted. (background here.) The testimony of a high-ranking military lawyer, Lt. Col. Stephen Abraham, has been speculated to have changed the mind of Justice Anthony Kennedy to grant cert, as he testified that the CSRTs were, for all intents and purposes, worthless--thus nullifying the substantive and procedural due process the CSRTs were designed to provide.(I'll find the link later. kind of in a hurry at the moment.) Abraham link here.
The Right is howling as if this is the end to military justice as we know it. In reality, the Boumediene decision safeguards the rights of people whom have been held (and in several cases, tortured) for years without any sort of legal justification as to why...and thus rebukes the attempts of the government to overstep its prerogative yet again. I'm all for being tough on terrorists, but not at the expense of a cornerstone of personal liberty by an over-reaching collusive alliance of the Legislative and Executive branches of the federal government.
Way to go, SCOTUS.
As I mentioned before, the opinion is over 130 pages. I'm not about to hash through it bit by bit, but I will address Scalia's dissent, already being fully embraced by the Right.
From the beginning, our beloved "Nino" distorts the entire concept of the case. Several times throughout his venomous dissent, he refers to the "war" against "radical Islamists" and various attacks the U.S. has suffered at the hands of Muslims: the Khobar Towers attack in Dharan, the embassy attacks at Dar es Salaam and Nairobi, the USS Cole and...the Marine barracks in Lebanon? (For my younger readers, that was an attack near the beginning of the Reagan administration.) Er, one of these things is not like the others...
Conflated responsibility for attacks aside, the fact is that the "War on Terror" is a war on an abstraction--it is a policy catch-phrase that, outside of an actual battlefield, serves only as rhetoric and a rationalization for the growth of the security state and reckless foreign policy. Not dissimilarly, it is no more a "war" than the war on illicit commodities, also known as the "War on Drugs." Certainly, there are tangible and substantial costs of blood and treasure for the victims and perpetrators of both of these "wars"--but neither is a war in any real sense.
9/11 wasn't an act of war--it was a heinous crime. 20 men, mostly Saudis, stole airplanes and murdered over 3,000 people. The Right has been all-too-quick to assign war powers to a president and Congress when, in fact, most of the acts they site are of a criminal nature. A "war on terror" would have to include a war on the Timothy McVeighs of the world, whom--by virtue of citizenship--are afforded constitutional protections and given trials. But this case doesn't even involve proper trials; it concerns whether or not foreign citizens--not to be confused with POWs--may challenge their incarceration in federal courts. Boumediene is one of several men who were imprisoned in Bosnia, by Bosnian authorities, held without charge, and then released for lack of evidence. After their release, they were picked up by Bosnian officials and transferred into U.S. custody--six years ago.
These men were not captured on the battlefield. These men were not, as far as anyone can tell, caught in the middle of some dastardly plot against the United States. Indeed, there is no evidence that, even if they are criminals, they had any intention of doing harm to the United States whatsoever. How they (legally speaking) came into the custody of the U.S. Military is quite a mystery to me. And, due to the legal black hole they found themselves in, as neither U.S. citizens or proper POWs (protected by the Geneva Conventions), they had no sufficient legal recourse to challenge their detentions.
Those whom have not followed this case closely may not be aware that Boumediene v. Bush had actually been denied certiorari before it was granted. (background here.) The testimony of a high-ranking military lawyer, Lt. Col. Stephen Abraham, has been speculated to have changed the mind of Justice Anthony Kennedy to grant cert, as he testified that the CSRTs were, for all intents and purposes, worthless--thus nullifying the substantive and procedural due process the CSRTs were designed to provide.
The Right is howling as if this is the end to military justice as we know it. In reality, the Boumediene decision safeguards the rights of people whom have been held (and in several cases, tortured) for years without any sort of legal justification as to why...and thus rebukes the attempts of the government to overstep its prerogative yet again. I'm all for being tough on terrorists, but not at the expense of a cornerstone of personal liberty by an over-reaching collusive alliance of the Legislative and Executive branches of the federal government.
Way to go, SCOTUS.
Tuesday, April 8, 2008
Lugar on Iraq
As I already have one post about a Senator from my home state, I might as well give equal time to the other.
Call me a homer, but Dick Lugar is the kind of man and politician U.S. Senators should aspire to be.[T]he terms of our inquiry today are much different than they were last September. At that time, the President was appealing to Congress to allow the surge to continue to create breathing space for a political accommodation. Today the questions are whether and how improvements in security can be converted into political gains that can stabilize Iraq despite the impending drawdown of U.S. troops. Simply appealing for more time to make progress is insufficient. The debate over how much progress we have made and whether we can make more is less illuminating than determining whether the Administration has a definable political strategy that recognizes the time limitations we face and seeks a realistic outcome designed to protect American vital interests.
Sunday, January 20, 2008
Saturday, January 5, 2008
The Human Cost of War
I don't care which side (of many) of the war debate you're on, you need to read this.
Tuesday, November 6, 2007
Typing Faster Than He Thinks
Before a modification to cover for his absurd assertion, NRO's David Frum posted this:
Frum quickly changed his tune:
Schmuck.
Update: Howard Dean in 2004 attracted 318,000 individual donors who donated 454,000 times for a total of almost $40 million. That's approximately ten times Paul's haul in every dimension. True, Dean did not do it in one day. But almost all that money arrived in a single quarter. My conclusion from this is that Ron Paul is actually underperforming his potential. He could probably raise a lot more - and gain many, many more votes - if he dropped the gold standard and New World Order stuff, and ran as a straightforward anti-war leftist. (emphasis mine)Any friend of mine knows I'm no Ron Paul fan, despite his libertarian credentials. But "straightforward anti-war leftist"? Who the hell does Frum think he's kidding? Just because someone isn't a socialist war hawk (a.k.a. NEO-CON) does not make them a leftist.
Frum quickly changed his tune:
I'd guess that he would do much better if he dropped the gold standard stuff, and ran a pure anti-war campaign, spicily seasoned with 9/11 paranoia.Of course Frum would prefer that! If Paul ran as strictly anti-war, it would help continue the charade that the GOP has not completely lost its mind and moorings betraying the mantles of Goldwater and Reagan for a bastardized combination of TR's foreign policy and FDR's domestic policy.
Schmuck.
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